TROUBLE COMES HOME TO THE BAD LITTLE OWLS
Well, Killer waited, and waited, and waited. But nobody came at all.
Nobody unless you count the bats. Killer didn’t because only a bird
can catch them when they’re awake, and it’s a mighty lucky bird if it
does.
He got hungrier, and hungrier, and hungrier. Still nobody came. And
the hungrier he got the madder he was because the Little Screecher
Owls had brought him there. He thought they were playing a trick on
him. So he began to slip from one tree to another, hunting for the one
they perch in.
The ground under an owl’s perch always has little gray wads of fur and
feathers and bones beneath it--the leftovers of the last food the owls
have been eating.
If there are very many weasels and cats to bother them, the owls
neatly carry these to some other tree than the one they sleep in. But
these Bad Little Owls were too lazy to attend to their housekeeping.
Killer put his nose into a whole pile of this rubbish the very first
thing.
“Robin!” he sniffed. “Let me think. That owl said she didn’t hunt
robins. Then she stole them; she stole them from under the Robins’
Roost. I’ll teach that owl to let my birds alone, just exactly
wherever I choose to leave them. She stole those robins! I’ll----” But
he pricked up his ears because he heard the little owls begin to talk
on their perch just over his head.
“I wonder if Killer and the Woodsfolk have made friends by now,” said
one. “I’ve been listening ever since I woke up, and I haven’t heard a
thing.”
“Few beasts can move so quietly that an owl doesn’t hear them even if
he’s listening,” thought Killer proudly.
“Of course they’ve made friends,” said the lady owl. “If they made
friends with Stripes Skunk, of course they would with him. He’s ever
so much smarter, and I think he’s much handsomer.” She did, too. Owls
think it’s fine to be fierce looking.
“But what if they don’t?” insisted her mate.
“Why, then I’ll show him where they have their holes and help him hunt
them, that’s all,” she answered.
“A-ha!” said Killer to himself. “That won’t be a bad plan. I won’t
quarrel with her yet. I’ll let her help me all she can before I get
even with her. All the same, I want to know what that man is doing out
here, and why she didn’t warn me.”
He meant Louie Thomson.
If those little owls had known there wasn’t another thing for him to
eat in all the Woods and Fields except the flittery bats, which he
couldn’t catch, and Chatter Squirrel, safely hidden in his secret
nest, they’d have had the appetites scared right out of them--and
that’s the most you can possibly scare an owl. But they didn’t. So
there they perched, feasting on the robins they had stored in their
hole, which they used for a pantry.
“Speaking of holes,” said the little he-owl, “I’ve been wondering if
we oughtn’t to look up some more. This one we have will never hold all
we’ll have to hide when that weasel begins killing the Woodsfolk.”
“It’s no use,” answered his wicked little wife. “Those Woodsfolk are
all too big for us to carry. We’ll have to eat them where he leaves
them, like we did when Silvertip was doing our hunting.”
“Silvertip!” bristled the weasel. “O-ho! I remember that fox. He
couldn’t catch me. I’m too smart for him. But I’d better keep an eye
out. I wonder where he is now?”
“I wish Killer would catch some more robins,” said the little he-owl,
wiping his beak clean of the feathers that were sticking to it.
“They’re very convenient, and we’ve eaten all but the very last one.
Shall I get it?”
“Um-hm!” the weasel nodded to himself. “Now I understand. You birds
invited me here to do your hunting, did you? Well, I’ll see to it you
don’t get anything you don’t earn.” But of course he didn’t say
it--not yet. He wanted to hear what else they’d talk about.
“Only one robin left!” exclaimed the lady owl. “My claws! Who’d have
thought we’d eat those birds all up in such a short time? You must
have been at them while I was sleeping, you greedy thing! I’ve had
hardly any of them.” She clattered her beak at the other owl so
angrily that he moved away from her down the limb.
“You’ve had as many as I have,” he whimpered. “Can’t we show Killer
the stump where the mice live? They’d be easy to carry, and he’d kill
any amount of them.”
“Fine!” she agreed. “We’ll need them. There’s going to be a storm.”
“Well, we might just as well eat this robin then,” argued her piggy
little mate, “and then we can clean out the hole and leave it all
ready to store the mice in.”
Killer listened while the owl tugged and grunted, getting the bird out
of his narrow pantry door. Suddenly he called: “I’ll trouble you for
that robin. It’s mine, and I want it myself!”
Plunk! Down fell the bird, ’most on top of the wide burdock leaf where
Killer was hiding from them. But that wasn’t on purpose. The little
he-owl never meant to let it fall--he just jumped so hard from fright
that he dropped it.
My, but his wife wanted to peck him! She didn’t dare, for fear Killer
would see how angry she was about losing it. She gave her husband a
horrid glare with her scary, starey eyes, and then she said in her
politest voice: “Certainly, Mr. Weasel, you’re welcome to anything we
have.”
“But I don’t see how you come to have it,” said Killer rudely.
“Owl custom, owl custom, my dear sir,” said she, preening herself so
her feathers wouldn’t ruffle and show how scared she was. “We pick up
the odds and ends you clever hunters don’t care about, and store them
up here in our hole. You can see it from where you are, and I’m sure I
hope you’ll help yourself whenever you feel like it.” All this time
she was saying to herself: “That’s the last thing we’ll hide in this
hole, now he knows where it is.” Wasn’t she deceitful?
“You’re very kind, I’m sure,” he answered more politely. “But I’ve
hurt my paw so I can’t climb.” He said that because he hoped the owls
would go on roosting there so he could come and catch them in the
daytime if he wanted to.
“Isn’t that too bad,” she sympathized. Really she was glad; her
feathers unruffled again, now that she felt sure he couldn’t sneak up
on her while she wasn’t looking.
By this time he was picking the robin’s bones. Pretty soon he licked
his whiskers with a raspy tongue; it made cold shivers run through
those bad little birds. Even the lady owl was sorry she’d brought him
to Tommy Peele’s Woods and Fields. That’s what she got for losing her
temper. She wondered how long he’d been listening and what he’d heard.
The wicked weasel knew just what she was thinking about. He said in a
voice as raspy as his tongue: “I heard you say something about a
mouse’s stump. That sounds like a quick place to get a full meal
before this storm that’s coming. I’ll ask you to take me there so I
won’t have to waste any time hunting for it. But first I want to ask
you some questions. Come down here so I don’t have to shout. Come
along!”
His wife stared at the Bad Little Owl and the Bad Little Owl stared
back at her. Their eyes grew wider and shinier, and their clothes felt
pin-featherier than ever they had since the day those birds were
hatched. My, but they were scared! Slowly they both turned to stare
down at Killer the Weasel, who sat beneath their tree. And let me tell
you he wasn’t the handsome, slicked-up beast with the pricky ears and
the arched neck and the fluffed tail who had tried to make friends
with the Woodsfolk--he looked too sharp-toothed and snaky for
anything.
“Hustle!” called Killer in his raspy voice. “I’m not going to shout at
you way up there for every one to hear, and I’m not going to hunt,
until I know several things that you forgot to tell me when you
invited me here. But we’ve no time to waste. If this turns out to be a
three-days’ storm we’ll be hungry enough by the end of it, even if we
get a good meal before it begins. Come along!” He fixed his eye on the
lady owl, and she saw a red spark gleaming in it.
She didn’t mean to come--not she. But somehow she couldn’t seem to
help herself. Before he knew quite what she was doing, down she came.
She grabbed at the springy, pickery stem of a wild raspberry--no bird
in its sane senses would ever think of perching on one--and there she
hung. But she knew he could jump right up and catch her.
“Now!” he hissed in that dreadful whisper things from under-the-earth
use, whether they wear fur or scales, “Where’s Silvertip the Fox, my
deadly enemy?”
“Silvertip? Oh, he’s duck hunting in the Big Marsh, way off the other
side of the Deep Woods,” lied the owl. She didn’t dare tell him
Silvertip was dead.
“Ah,” growled the weasel. “Well, then, why didn’t you warn me about
that man?” (He meant Louie Thomson.) “Did you think I wouldn’t know
these woods are full of his jaws, just gaping for me to put my foot in
one?” (He meant traps, of course.)
“Who-o-o!” exclaimed the owl. “That man hasn’t any more jaws or claws
than a hoptoad. Men don’t get them till they’re grown, and he’s just a
little harmless wild one. He never hunts; he lives on corn. Once in a
while he comes over here for a root from Doctor Muskrat, who owns the
pond--just like the other wild things do if they’re sick or hurt. Then
he goes back again.”
“Hey? What’s that? A wild man? There isn’t any such thing!” snarled
Killer.
“Well, he’s wild. You could see for yourself even the rabbits weren’t
afraid of him,” the owl kept on arguing.
The weasel thought for a minute. That certainly was true; so were the
corncobs, left from Louie’s feast, he saw piled beside the little
blanket tent. “All right,” said he. “Then show me the mouse’s stump.
Flap along, bird, flap along!”